Lou is one of 5 incorporators of the CLCT when created in Nov. 14, 1967. He spent 18 years as President, and resigned as such in 1994. Written in 1994: "under Lou’s leadership the Trust gave moral and financial support to the Waterside Lane Preservation Association in their battle with the US Army Corps of Engineers and others who were filling in the marshes of the lower Indian River. The lawsuit was won and the marshes restored. The Trust also sponsored and provided financial support for several environmental programs in the Clinton school system. The Deane Haag Trail was established in memory of a former dedicated member of the Board of Directors. His idea for a corps of Adopt-A-Trail volunteers ensured the maintenance and grooming of the Trust trails by groups and individuals. He saw the Trust’s holdings grow from 33 acres in 1975 to 513 in 1994."

Louis Gerard Bougie was born in the Bronx, New York, on June 7, 1926. His parents, Joseph Bougie and Gertrude St. Pierre were French Canadian immigrants from Bromptonville in Quebec. In 1915, his mother’s family settled in Worcester, Massachusetts, while his father’s family settled in Lawrence, Massachusetts. They married in Worcester.
In 1932 Lou, his brother and mother moved to Worcester from NYC. His father remained and worked as a slate roofer. After the 1938 hurricane devastated the northeast, his dad worked at Sawyer’s Lumber Yard in Worcester. Lou attended the Holy Family School and graduated in 1940. After a year at Assumption Prep he transferred to St. Peter’s High School and graduated in 1944. He registered for the draft the day the Allies landed in France.
Lou entered the US Army in August and was sent to Florida for infantry replacement training. While there he was bitten by a scorpion, didn’t complete training and was not deployed outside the USA.
After his discharge, Lou came home and like other veterans looked at college options. At Fort Devens, Massachusetts, Lou found a “college” environment little different from the Army. Thus, he ventured to Concord College in West Virginia, a mix of veterans and locals. Lou met and married Margaret Grummett, also a student and graduated with a major in education and a minor in French in 1950. Lou, his wife and some friends went on to Indiana University where he graduated in 1952 with a major in Counseling and a minor in French. Moving back to Worcester, Lou couldn’t find a teaching position and worked a year for the National Security Agency in Washington, DC.
In 1960 Lou, his wife and daughter, Jane moved to Prince George County in Maryland. James, his son who died five years ago and son, Stephen were born there. He taught French, history and social studies and helped found the teachers’ credit union. The entire state had segregated schools, twenty-three white and two black high schools. These working conditions and poor pay caused Lout to speak out. Soon after his Principal told him that he had no future in the school system.
Thus, the family moved to Littleton, New Hampshire, where he gained a guidance position and Lou and Margaret had a fourth child, a girl Suzanne. During one summer Lou took guidance courses at Syracuse University.
After three years, the family moved to Clinton, Connecticut, when Lou became a guidance counselor at Branford High School from 1962-1990. He, together with Bob Sperry and Tom Bouley adopted a scheduling package to address Branford High’s overcrowding in the late 60’s and early 70’s. The stress and problems of faulty software led to the death of his friend Ernest “Bucky” Hatfield, Branford HS Principal, from a heart attack. During that time, he played major roles in the Branford Credit Union and the Branford Education Association.
Lou and his family soon moved to his present Clinton home. There, as a founder and for many years president of the Clinton Land Conservation Trust, he helped save local wetlands and reintroduced ospreys to the area. The osprey families that visit the marsh at the front of his home every year are expected in April. Since Margaret passed on nine years ago, he no longer can share that joy with her. These birds now migrate as far north as Newfoundland